How Europe treats suspects

12:01AM GMT 27 Jan 2005

Germany does not implement house arrest, nor can it extradite terrorist suspects to countries where they face risk of death penalty or torture. The German police need well grounded suspicion to arrest suspects, a constitutional requirement to which the Germans have stuck rigidly since September 11. This has led to tensions with the US authorities, which have been pressing hard for more arrests. There are believed to be at least six terrorist suspects, both Germans and non-Germans, linked to the so-called Hamburg cell - where three of the four Twin Towers suicide pilots were based - who are living freely, though under police surveillance.

The application of laws of detention in Spain are random. People can be released immediately if not charged, or detained for up to 2-3 years. No new laws in respect of anti-terrorism have been introduced since the New York atrocity.

Italy has two categories of detention without charge. There is "preventive detention" where murder, terrorism and serious crime suspects can be kept for unspecified periods of time, sometimes up to years. People can be arrested on suspicion and are not charged until the case goes before a preliminary judge. Then there is "house arrest", which is a category retained for those judged to represent a threat.

France pursues a rigorous policy in dealing with terrorist suspects, holding them in jail for long periods while the accusations against them are investigated. There is no house arrest but investigating judges familiar with such inquiries justify the prolonged detention - two years may elapse before suspects are brought to trial or released - by pointing to French successes in confronting the internal terrorist threat.

But human rights groups protested last summer when four French nationals were returned from Guantanamo Bay after two and a half years in American military custody, only to be detained in French prisons. There they remain, under investigation for "association with criminals in relation to a terrorist enterprise". Bail applications have been routinely rejected and one of the four, Mourad Benchellali, began a hunger strike on Dec 27.